# FOMO: Forget the Concept, Don't Miss Out on the Scene in Selective Video Unlearning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.39605 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.39605/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Vision-language and text-to-image safety, one of 12 directions in LLM safety and security.
- Builds on 29 of its 37 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 30 Sep 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM safety and security / [Vision-language and text-to-image safety](https://mlsanity.com/safety/vision-language-and-text-to-image-safety/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07193/) (2023)
- [CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06072/) (2024)
- [VBench: Comprehensive Benchmark Suite for Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17982/) (2023)
- [AnimateDiff: Animate Your Personalized Text-to-Image Diffusion Models without Specific Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04725/) (2023)
- [Open-Sora: Democratizing Efficient Video Production for All](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.20404/) (2024)
- [Erasing Concepts from Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.07345/) (2023)
- [Safe Latent Diffusion: Mitigating Inappropriate Degeneration in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.05105/) (2022)
- [Unified Concept Editing in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14761/) (2023)
- [MACE: Mass Concept Erasure in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.06135/) (2024)
- [Taming Rectified Flow for Inversion and Editing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.04746/) (2024)
- [Defensive Unlearning with Adversarial Training for Robust Concept Erasure in Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.15234/) (2024)
- [Reliable and Efficient Concept Erasure of Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.12383/) (2024)
- [SAFREE: Training-Free and Adaptive Guard for Safe Text-to-Image And Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.12761/) (2024)
- [Receler: Reliable Concept Erasing of Text-to-Image Diffusion Models via Lightweight Erasers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.17717/) (2023)
- [EraseAnything: Enabling Concept Erasure in Rectified Flow Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.20413/) (2024)
- [T2VSafetyBench: Evaluating the Safety of Text-to-Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.05965/) (2024)
- [Precise, Fast, and Low-cost Concept Erasure in Value Space: Orthogonal Complement Matters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.06143/) (2024)
- [T2VUnlearning: A Concept Erasing Method for Text-to-Video Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.17550/) (2025)
- [VideoEraser: Concept Erasure in Text-to-Video Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.15314/) (2025)
- [Video Unlearning via Low-Rank Refusal Vector](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.07891/) (2025)
- [UnGuide: Learning to Forget with LoRA-Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05755/) (2025)
- [SafeMo: Linguistically Grounded Unlearning for Trustworthy Text-to-Motion Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.00590/) (2026)
- [Human Motion Unlearning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18674/) (2025)
- [UnHype: CLIP-Guided Hypernetworks for Dynamic LoRA Unlearning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.03410/) (2026)
- [Orthogonal Concept Erasure for Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.28902/) (2026)
- [Interpretable Motion-Attentive Maps: Spatio-Temporally Localizing Concepts in Video Diffusion Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.02919/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The rapid advancement of generative video models has enabled the synthesis of increasingly realistic and temporally coherent videos, while also raising concerns about the generation of harmful content. The reliance on large-scale web datasets during training inevitably exposes these models to undesirable material, making concept unlearning an essential mitigation. Existing methods mainly target static visual concepts, such as objects, identities, or unsafe appearance, largely overlooking motion unlearning. Furthermore, these approaches often pay little attention to preserving the surrounding scene. As a result, successful concept removal may unintentionally alter the background, composition, or overall video dynamics. We argue that effective unlearning should ideally change only what is targeted, while minimizing unnecessary changes to the remaining scene. In this work, we introduce FOMO, to the best of our knowledge the first training-based selective video unlearning method that directly treats preservation of the original scene as a priority. We formulate unlearning around two complementary objectives: what to change and what to preserve. Our method localizes concept-related representations and modifies them, while the preservation mechanism maintains non-target scene information without requiring auxiliary data. Beyond simply erasing unwanted concepts, FOMO explicitly redirects the generation toward a specified safe alternative. We further extend this formulation to motion unlearning, where the concept is defined by temporal behavior rather than a fixed spatial region. Our solution achieves effective unlearning across unsafe content, object, and motion concepts, while achieving the best trade-off between concept removal and scene preservation. Code: https://github.com/gmum/FOMO Project Page https://gmum.github.io/FOMO